Sailing the sands of the Massai

Arrr! Ahoy ye followers of this here epic tale, a gripping story of a man, fancying himself as a sea faring swashbuckler, seeking himself on a journey through this wondrous yet dangerous world. In this next chapter, he has roughed through a sea of gold, the ever expansive and undulating plains of the Massai Mara on a land lubber's ship, named thee Land Rover.

Or should I say, Jolly Ho chaps. Cheers and all that rubbish. In his latest adventure, the mighty hunter has just returned from a lovely holiday, armed with merely a photography machine and his wits, he bravely trampled through the wild bush in search of the mighty beast.

Yes, I have finally returned from my first African Safari. I can hardly put into words to describe the experience. It was by far, one of the most amazing things I have ever done. On Saturday morning, our driver picked us up at the hotel and we departed for the regional airport. The flights were fine, but we had to make 2 stops along the way landing on dirt runways covered with rocks and animal excrements before we reached our destination, the Mara Intrepids Tented Camp. Here is a picture of the plane on our "runway":

Ok, when I say tented camp, it isn’t like we were roughing it at all. Here are some photos of our “tent”. You can see the canopy beds in the mirror of the bathroom:

After an amazing buffet lunch, we departed on our first game drive. The scenery was one of the most beautiful things I have ever witnessed. It was like combining the vastness of the Grand Canyon with the beauty of an Italian fresco. During the drive we found Thompson Gazelle’s, Impalas, Wildebeests, Zebras, Cheetahs, a Leopard, Lions, an Elephant, and Hippos. I’m just going to let the pictures tell the tale (Disclaimer: I took each of these pictures. It's amazing what a good camera can capture!)

And these were just a few of the pictures. During the entire weekend trip, I took over 300 photos of which the majority will be posted in my facebook page when I get back or when I get a quicker internet connection. After that game drive, we had dinner (pictured below) and watched a traditional Massai dance.

Following a restful night sleep, listening to all of the strange animal noises, we woke up at 5:30 the next morning to meet our driver for our second and final game drive. We saw some of the same animals plus others. Here are a few more pictures from the second drive:

And here are just some interesting photos that I took with my super fancy new camera:

So that was the safari. It really stinks to be back at work because we had so much fun, but such is life. It's better than being stuck in a cubicle, right? (Oops. Sorry to all of you who work in cubicles!) I would’ve stayed there to clean toilets if they would've let me! We’ve got one more week of class here in Nairobi and then this Friday we are flying to Mombasa, which is on the coast. I’ll try to do another post when I get a chance in the next couple of weeks. I hope all is well with everyone and drop me a line if you want.

Take care, savvy?